The release of The Hobbit happening next week, and with it comes a butt-load of new cards. Which means we’ll be working on butt-load of new brews! It feels like we just got done with Marvel Super Heroes, but we’ve already got another set around the corner. While this set is a bit smaller, power level-wise it still brings some super fun inclusions to the table.
As a quick reminder, this is a Brewer’s Review: we aren’t looking at this through a pure Spiky or Limited lens. Instead, I’m focusing specifically on Historic and MTG Arena formats. I’ll be highlighting the cards that look fun, interesting, and anything I’m excited to mess with.
The Hobbit brings some awesome tribal support for under-represented creature types (Elves, Dwarves, Halflings, Wolves, Goblins, and Dragons), along with a heavy suite of legendaries that keep cards like Mox Amber relevant.
Check out the full video breakdown below to see my initial thoughts on where these new cards fit into the format, and let me know in the comments what you’re most excited to build around!
Belladonna Took is a two-mana 2/2 legendary Halfling Citizen that gives you escalating triggers whenever tokens enter under your control. If you remember the old “Four-Color Rectangles” deck we played a while back built around Academy Manufactor and Lonis, Cryptozoologist, this fits right in. Because Academy Manufactor turns a single token event into a Clue, a Treasure, and a Food all at once, it immediately triggers all three of Belladonna’s abilities in one shot. Beyond that midrange value engine, it turns on Mox Amber, works nicely with multi-token makers like Wish Good Luck or Lingering Souls, and keeps your hand gassed while pumping your whole board every single turn.
People are already calling this a two-mana Time Walk, and while it’s super strong, it functions more like a Reprieve that swaps drawing a card for a Silence effect. I don’t see this outright replacing cards, but rather stacking alongside Silence, Orim’s Chant, and Revel in Silence in heavy delay shells to give us up to 16 copies of that effect. In a UW High Noon deck or a lock list running The One Ring, Union of the Third Path, and Approach of the Second Sun, chaining these together early gives you all the time you need to advance your board state.
Kili, the Resourceful is a two-mana 1/2 legendary Dwarf Scout with the new Enduring Story mechanic. Once you control three or more artifacts, legendaries, or Sagas, you get Enduring Story for the rest of the game, making the first equip activation each turn cost zero mana. On top of that, it draws you a card whenever another Dwarf or equipment enters, though they put a once-per-turn safety valve on it. It’s essentially a Puresteel Paladin at home tailored for Historic Hammer Time and equipment shells. Because it’s legendary, it enables turn-one Mox Amber, and alongside cards like Leyline Axe, Stoneforge Mystic, or Kemba’s Outfitter, you can easily get Enduring Story on turn two and start slapping Colossus Hammers onto your creatures for free.
A simple one-mana 1/1 White creature that Recruits when it dies, meaning you draw and discard, and if you pitch a nonland card, you get a 1/1 White Soldier token. If this were an ETB trigger it would be completely nuts, but as a death trigger, it’s still a ton of value for a single mana. It replaces itself, digs a card deeper into your deck, and leaves a body behind when it dies. It’s a fantastic glue card for sacrifice decks, especially alongside Abiding Grace, which lets you loop it every single turn to churn through your deck, block, and feed cards like Priest of Forgotten Gods or Bloodghast in a sac shell.
While the chapters might not look broken individually, this is a clean single-card enabler for The Oculus. You can pitch The Oculus to the Chapter 1 loot trigger and then immediately bring it back with Chapter 2. Outside of reanimator, it also has a sweet interaction with Garnet, Princess of Alexandria from Final Fantasy, who can continuously remove lore counters from the Saga when she attacks so you can loop the looting or reanimation triggers every single turn.
Having to attack makes it play a bit more like Dreadhorde Arcanist than Snapcaster Mage, but the value is huge. It plays well into Doc Aurlock to double-discount your graveyard or exile plays while enabling Mox Amber, and it fits right into Dimir or Sultai builds alongside Emry, Lurker of the Loch to buy back cheap artifacts and spells. I think being a Rogue is also quite relevant but this should find a home in a variety of shells in general.
Elven Raft Steer is a three-mana 3/2 Elf Pilot with a Landfall trigger that lets you either tap an opponent’s creature or untap one of your own. It’s basically Retreat to Coralhelm attached to a creature body, which is awesome because you can hit it directly off Collected Company. This gives us another piece for the classic Knight of the Reliquary loop: you sac a land with Knight to fetch another land, Elven Raft Steer untaps Knight on the Landfall trigger, and you repeat the process to pull every land out of your deck. You can also run it with Wight of the Reliquary or Zimone and Dina to pull off similar land-tutor engines. We don’t have Sejiri Steppe in the format but I’m sure we can find a way to OHKO with Knight somehow.
We played a Jeskai “Flying Men” deck a while back with Mantis Rider and Momo, and this feels like an awesome new top-end finisher for a shell like that. If you warp in a Quantum Riddler or blink it with Ephemerate, you can easily drop an 8/8 instant-speed flyer on turn three or four. Flyers also has access to Sephara as another high-powered top end. Not sure it’ll take off (get it?) since it doesn’t have any protection, but an 8/8 for two mana is pretty strong.
Comparing it to Picklock Prankster, the Adventure is a sorcery rather than an instant, but getting a one-mana 2/2 flyer in exchange for a little graveyard setup is a really aggressive rate. It pairs naturally with Delver of Secrets and gives spell-heavy tempo decks a nice bit of extra card selection and pressure. Doesn’t really have a home in the format right now, but neat to have access to.
It’s effectively a Black Putrid Leech, and my immediate reaction is that it belongs straight in Dimir Death’s Shadow alongside Cecil. Being able to pay two life at any time, even on your opponent’s turn to turn on a Ferocious-enabled Stubborn Denial, is huge, and having a two-mana 4/4 body on attack gives the deck a reliable, aggressive beater. A very clean uncommon.
Is it top-tier competitive? Probably not, but my dream is to use it for Horror tribal alongside Thing in the Ice. When Thing in the Ice flips, it bounces all non-Horrors, leaving Gollum on the board. You can also copy it with Silent-Hall Creeper to reset the odd/even triggers, making it a niche piece to experiment with.
Paired with existing cards like Nightpack Ambusher and new additions like Night-Hollow Pursuer and Chief Orbs Company, we are finally getting a real reason to build Jund Wolves in Historic. Backing up a wide, instant-speed Wolf board with cards like Thoughtseize, Fatal Push, and Huntmaster of the Fells sounds incredible, and these new tools give the tribe a ton of midgame closing power.
It’s a bit like a Black Villainous Wealth. You need a lot of mana and a high life total to make it pop, but in a Mono-Black Devotion shell running Nykthos, Cabal Stronghold, and Gray Merchant of Asphodel, that’s not a problem. It’s also cute if you pair it with Scheming Symmetry to tutor a card to the top of their deck and immediately steal it on your turn. Probably a 1 or 2-of in the shells that want it.
Sackville-Bagginses is a two-mana 2/2 legend that lets you sacrifice another creature or artifact on ETB to draw a card and make a Treasure, and it drains your opponent for one life whenever you sacrifice a token. It bridges the gap between token-heavy setups and sacrifice engines like Warren Soultrader. It speeds up your clock significantly in Samwise Gamgee and Cauldron Familiar loops, giving you extra draw and extra drain every time you crack a Food token. There might not be room for this in existing shells like Yawgmoth, but could still be worth testing.
The obvious synergy here is pairing it with Culling Ritual against low-curve decks like Auras or Elves. You wipe their entire board, gain a bunch of mana, and then bring all of their creatures onto your side of the field as Food tokens to steal their ETB effects and feed your sacrifice engines. This may spawn it’s own deck completely since I’m not sure what deck would need this besides some odd-ball sideboard applications.
It acts as copies five through eight of Fervent Champion, giving aggressive Boros Equipment decks another hyper-efficient one-drop body. While it lacks haste, cheapening the equip costs of turn-one Leyline Axe into turn-two free equipment swings with Umezawa’s Jitte, Sword of Fire and Ice, or Colossus Hammer gives equipment strategies a massive boost in consistency.
Getaway Barrel is a four-mana artifact that digs 13 cards deep when sent from the field to the graveyard to put a random creature card directly onto the battlefield. Four mana to cheat out a massive payoff is a great rate, and we have plenty of ways to sacrifice or recur artifacts using Trash for Treasure, Goblin Engineer, and Shrapnel Blast. If you build your deck around hitting giant payoffs like Ulamog, Emrakul, Darksteel Colossus, or Wurmcoil Engine, digging 13 cards deep makes it pretty reliable to hit a game-ending threat. Quite strong with Daretti as well if the deck wants to goa bit bigger in terms of its enablers.
Last Light of Durance Day is a two-mana enchantment with Mountaincycling for two that gains a quest counter whenever a Mountain enters under your control. Once it hits six counters, you sacrifice it to tutor any Dragon directly from your hand or library onto the battlefield. It’s a bit slow, but it acts as mana-smoothing early on and guarantees a massive top-end payoff like Bahamut, Glorybringer, or Stormbreath Dragon later in the game. We’ve played “Skredless Red” decks in the past and this might be a decent inclusion in a dragon-focused build along with Invasion of Tarkir.
Notary Hobbits is a five-mana 1/1 legendary Halfling Advisor that creates two non-legendary token copies of itself on ETB, and each Halfling you control taps for one colorless mana. That means a single five-mana investment immediately gives you three Halflings that tap for nine mana total on the next turn. If you ramp into it with Delighted Halfling or boost it with Leyline of Abundance, the mana output gets completely absurd, letting you jump straight into casting Emrakul, Banefire, or a massive Genesis Wave to dump your entire deck onto the field. I think this will be disgusting with Badgermole (obviously).
Having another cheap mana engine alongside Skirk Prospector is huge for Goblins. A turn-one Prospector into turn-two Bulge Company into a token maker sets up a turn-three Muxus, Goblin Grandmaster, while also giving Rakdos Goblin builds clean Black mana to cast premium sideboard interaction. Seems sweet with Soul Cauldron as well.
Key of the Side Door is a one-mana artifact that pays two mana to make a creature unblockable, or pays one mana to discard a legendary card with the same name as a legendary permanent you control to draw two cards. In legend-heavy artifact decks running Emry, Urza, or Tamiyo, this turns redundant draws stuck in your hand under the legend rule into card draw. It’s easily tutorable, buys back with Emry, and helps massive Construct tokens push through lethal unblockable damage. Wizards please give me Urza’s Saga!
Historic doesn’t have traditional fetchlands, so having access to this alongside Prismatic Vista gives us eight fetchable targets to turn on turn-one Deathrite Shaman activations. It opens up really interesting Golgari Rock or land-tutor shells where Deathrite Shaman can actually function at full power as a mana dork and graveyard check.
The Lonely Mountain is a tutorable Mountain that enters untapped if you control an equipment, and it has a five-mana ability to create a 2/2 Red Dwarf that costs one less to activate for each equipment you control. If you’re running a heavy Boros equipment deck with four equipments on board, this land turns into a one-mana engine that spits out a 2/2 body every single turn. It gives aggressive equipment lists an uncounterable, tutorable land that generates endless value in the late game. Good to have access to!
Closing Thoughts
All in all, while The Hobbit might not have the massive raw footprint of a full premier set, it brings a surprising amount of depth and brewing potential to Historic. Cards like Bilbo’s Gambit and Belladonna Took have real potential to nudge existing archetypes in totally new directions, while pieces like Elven Passage give us more niche-level mana interactions we’ve been waiting on.
That’s my initial breakdown of the set! We’ll obviously be checking out more than what I talked about here, but I encourage you to come hang with me on stream next week as we start testing our initial brews!
Thanks for reading!
As always, feel free to comment and leave any questions you have below. And make sure to come back next week for even more Fun & Jank!
Plum is the creator of the Jank Tank.
He started playing at the ripe old age of 12 and immediately fell in love with the infinite possibilities that deck building could lead to.
He truly understands that jank is a mindset, and spends most of his free time brewing and concocting new and exciting deck lists to help inspire and promote creativity within the MTG community.
